


Crumbling walls

by secondhandsunlight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Gen, Panic Attacks, Wes Gibbins is Dean Thomas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 14:36:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6427849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondhandsunlight/pseuds/secondhandsunlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Thomas does not want to remember the war, so he doesn’t. He moves to another country, and starts a career in a field where the awfulness he faces won’t have anything to do with his past life. It all works well, until it doesn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crumbling walls

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't find any stories like this when I wanted to read one, so I wrote one myself. Disclaimer: I don't really feel safe enough with the portrayal of these characters that I'd choose to write about them normally, but I'm trying new things.  
> As always, this is only a creation of my mind and shouldn't be read as anything else.

Dean Thomas did not like to remember the war. Remembering gave him nightmares, and panic attacks. Remembering meant having to face the ghosts of all the friends he’d lost, and all the hurt it’d caused.

Dean did not want to remember the war, so he moved country and changed his name. He showed the few things he didn’t have heart to throw away – his welcoming letter, his Gryffindor scarf, the wand that hadn’t been his at first but that had decided he was a worthy new owner – into a small box and pushed it to the back of the closet in his new flat. He decided that the best way to forget was to surround himself with people who did not know about the war, and so he left magic behind.

Wes Gibbins did not remember the war. Or well, of course he did, but it wasn’t part of his life, and he didn’t have anything around him to spark his memory. Besides, he had new things that gave him stress dreams, so he rarely had time enough to let his thoughts slip to the past. Perhaps what was going around him now was worse, but it felt different, and that was all he could ask for. Maybe he wasn’t meant to have a happy existence. At least now he could use his career to focus on other people’s messed up lives rather than his own, and that was good enough for him. He wasn’t the same as he had been; the war had taken its toll on everyone. His body had adapted to a new way of moving, and trust seemed impossible even though he tried. Smiling felt different. He buried himself in work to hide, but from what he was not quite sure.

It all worked well, until one day when he spots a familiar face in the bar he and his – friends? Colleagues? – are eating dinner at, because of course Annalise had to kick them out of the house again. He stares at the side profile of his once-best friend, and he can’t stop himself.

“Seamus?”

The young man turns to him; his surprised expression turns into a huge grin when he sees who’s calling for him. He almost jogs towards Wes, wrapping him up in a tight hug when he reaches him.

“Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in years!” Seamus exclaims as a happy laughter slips off his lips. Wes, now standing up, whispers a hurried “Wes. It’s Wes now.” into Seamus ear, and then clings to him even closer. There’s so much that’s familiar in his friend, even if his edges have grown sharper with age. There’s slight stubble on his face that didn’t use to be there, but other than that Seamus feels just the same. When they eventually pull apart, he shuffles in on the seat and tells his friend to sit down, ignoring the feeling of stares in the back of his neck.

Wes does not want to remember, but the one thing he’d always wished he hadn’t had to lose, was his best friend. And now Seamus was there, in America for some strange reason, and forgetting was just impossible. They sit close, so close, and they talk and they laugh, and when he smiles it feels just like it used to. He tries to keep his walls up; reminds himself Seamus is leaving the next morning and that he’ll be back to himself, his new, safe self, as soon as they say goodbye.

It all works well, until it doesn’t, and when the gates are open he can’t stop the memories from flooding in. The terror of his past mixes with the horrors of his present, and the nightmares reach new levels. He feels himself cast the killing curse: hitting Sam square in the chest and watching the life leave his eyes. He stares as a Death Eater removes their mask, and suddenly it’s Rebecca standing in front of him. He sees the Dark Mark spread over his wrist, pulling the light out of his soul. He watches as the bodies of his friends, old and new, pile upon each other, and he knows it’s his entire fault. He knows he won’t ever escape it all.

He wakes up screaming more often than not, curling in on himself to try and get himself to stop shaking, stop crying. Stop _remembering_ , but it never works. It makes him twitchy, and the others start noticing and it makes them nervous because they don’t know, _can’t_ _know_ , why he’s actually so anxious all the time so they think he might rat on them, and he won’t, he won’t but there’s also the possibility that anyone they meet might want to kill him and he can’t really breathe sometimes and-

He still manages to catch the panic attacks before they can grip him by the throat. He really does. But then Halloween comes around, and if everything hadn’t already gone to hell this would be where Wes said it all went to hell.

They’ve all gathered in his small flat; why he agreed to them being there before going out, he doesn’t know. He only turns away for a minute, to find something in a drawer, but the room goes quiet.

“Wes, what is this?” Michaela’s voice asks. He turns around, and what he finds is nothing he would’ve ever expected. His wand, the one that is supposed to be hidden deep within his past, is in Connor’s hands. He’s turning it over and around, staring at it as if it wasn’t a part of a deep, dark secret. Wes’ head snaps up to Michaela when she starts talking again:

“Dear Dean Thomas, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizar-“

“That is none of your business,” Wes growls. He makes a try at grabbing the letter back, but Michaela easily dances out of his reach. He glares at her, tries to keep his breath calm even though the sight of the two- three; his scarf, _his_ scarf, is wrapped around Laurel’s neck, three things, makes his heart beat too hard. Tries his best to keep his fences up, to keep the memories from drowning him, but-

“Who’s Dean Thomas?”

“ _No-one,_ now give it back!” he demands, but his voice goes high as the panic forces itself through him, because _they’re not supposed to know_ , and he can feel his heart in his throat because someone else’s got his wand _again_.

“It’s literally just a fancy stick, don’t get so worked up,” Connor shrugs, and throws it to Michaela when Wes tries to snatch it. The room feels darker, and he can hear his heartbeats in his ears, and he begs, looking to Laurel, Laurel she has to realise this is not funny. But she just tilts her head.

“Yeah Wes, why are you so worked up? You’ve been acting weird all since that Seamus showed up.”

He ignores the comment, instead going for the obvious.

“Those are mine. You’ve got no right to go through my stuff!” His voice breaks, and it seems as if they’re finally getting that he’s not just annoyed, because Laurel starts taking off the scarf, and Connor straightens up with this look on his face that Dean – Wes, _Wes_ – can’t place, and Michaela takes a step towards him and he just needs his wand, needs to feel the magic so he knows it’s there and he’s safe, and there are so many demons in his head, and he reaches for it, but then the bathroom door flies open.

Dean spins around, the sudden bang crowding his world even further, and he sees the flash of a black cloak ( _his mind registers_ _Death Eater_ ), a wand pointed at his face. Words shouted, and his brain hears _Avada Kedavra_ , and screams, he screams and throws himself away because it’s all over him again and he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die as he scrambles to his feet and runs, runs out and down the stairs and doesn’t hear the calls of his name, just needs to get away because he doesn’t want to go back to that world, doesn’t want to be back in the darkness. But the clouds are black and as he glances up he can swear he sees the Dark Mark, and he dives into some bushes to hide, wraps his arms around his knees and cries. He’s so scared, and he’s lost his wand again, and he just abandoned his friends and he can’t make himself get up and go help. Can’t move, can just cry until he can’t breathe, until the rain has soaked him to the bones and he’s lying on his side on the muddy ground, shoulders still shaking, lungs still too tight to take in enough oxygen.

“Wes?” a soft voice asks, and he dares to crack his eyes open just a little bit. To his surprise, Connor is squatting next to him, drenched by the rain. He squeezes his eyes shut again and shakes his head over and over again.

“Dean, it’s Dean, it’s Dean,” he rambles, because he doesn’t feel like Wes right now, he doesn’t feel like he could pretend to be that man when all he is a scared little boy hiding from the world. He’s still not sure whether they’re safe, whether the war is still raging around them, but Connor doesn’t look stressed, and that at least makes him doubt if his mind is actually telling him the truth or not.

“Okay. Okay, Dean,” Connor says, his voice still kind, not disapproving, not angry. “Dean, you’re having a panic attack.”

Dean nods, because he knows, reasonably he knows but the mark in the sky, and the curse, and his body tells him it’s real, real.

“Dean, can I touch you?” Connor’s voice asks, and Dean decides to nod, decides he’s okay with that.

 A hand touches his shoulder, and he flinches away and opens his eyes fully, before he remembers that it’s just Connor, that it’s okay, and when arms scoop him up and wrap him in a tight embrace, he allows it to happen, burrowing his face into his friend’s shoulder as the sobbing escalates again.

“Nothing bad is happening, it’s all okay. Asher’s poor choice of Halloween costume is the only thing that’s bad, other than that it’s all right.”

It got a barked laugh out of Wes, in between sobs. Slowly, he got his breathing more under control. He dares to pull away from Connor slightly, to look out at the world. The sky is grey and cloudy, but it’s not black. And there’s no Dark Mark. A few meters away stand Michaela, Laurel, and Asher. Asher, looking sheepish and confused, in a standard magician costume with a big, black cape. A black and white, plastic wand sticks up from his pocket.

Wes giggles, at the absurdity. Maybe a little bit out of exhaustion too (maybe mostly out of exhaustion). _Abracadabra_.

“We put your things back. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…” Michaela doesn’t finish the sentence, but she does look sorry. Wes just nods, deciding that’s good enough.

“Let’s get you home, yeah?” Connor says, hand still on Wes’ shoulder.

“Yeah.”


End file.
